Harry Markopolos was working as a financial analyst on Wall Street in 1999 when his boss asked him to study what Bernie Madoff was doing. Madoff was reporting phenomenal success as he invested his client’s money and Harry’s boss wanted to replicate it. After doing some investigation, Harry concluded that Madoff was running an advanced Ponzi scheme. He warned the Securities and Exchange Commission and some journalists, but nobody believed him. Harry told authorities about Madoff’s scheme again in 2005 and again, no one would listen to him. It was the 2008 financial crash that finally exposed Madoff. His clients lost $65 billion but at least some of that could have been prevented if people had listened to Harry’s warnings.[i]
Hindsight gives us the benefit of 20/20 vision. It is easy for us to look back and see the information that others should have been heeded and acted upon. It is quite another thing for us to do it in our own lives in real time. Imagine that you’re facing a challenge and you’ve got five different options before you. One of them you tried before so you’re familiar with it. Another you’ve seen some friends do so you have some awareness about that. But then there’s a fifth option, which is something you’ve never done before, and you’ve never seen anyone else do before either. And you wonder, “How could that be the right way to go?” This is what happens with us in our lives, all the time. So how do we assess the vast array of information coming at us and determine which we should act on and how? That’s what we are thinking about today and to help us do that, we will be looking at a very special passage from the Bible, Exodus 12:1-13. If you have a Bible or a Bible app nearby, I invite you to turn there now.
God Rescues His People
In our time of reflection last week, we visited Moses when he was very frustrated. He had done all that God had called him to do, he went to the Pharaoh and spoke on the Lord’s behalf, telling him that he should let the Israelites go. All Pharaoh did was place a greater burden on the Israelite slaves by forcing them to gather their own straw for the bricks they made, and still produce the same number of bricks. Prior to this, the Egyptians provided the straw for the bricks, but now the Israelites had to get it themselves. With their suffering increased, the Israelites turned on Moses and Aaron and rebuked them. The people Moses came to save were rejecting him. This was all part of God’s plan for saving his people and this reminds us that sometimes things will get harder before they get better.
Then there was a series of nine plagues that God sent to try to convince the Pharaoh to let the Israelites go free. The Nile was turned to blood, frogs filled the land. Gnats, and then flies, descended upon Egypt in massive hordes. The Egyptians’ livestock died and boils broke out on their bodies. Hail destroyed the Egyptians crops and then locusts filled the land and ate whatever was left. Absolute darkness covered the land for three days. The Egyptians believed that their many gods were the ones who controlled all the forces of nature, but Yahweh was proving to Pharaoh and the rest of the Egyptians that their gods were nothing and he was the one who really had ultimate power. However Pharaoh’s heart was hard, so he would not acknowledge Yahweh’s greatness and submit his will to Yahweh’s. This was a battle between a superpower and a super God, and Pharaoh would not give up and admit what was becoming apparent: earthly power is nothing in comparison to the God who made the earth and all things.
Finally, through Moses, God announced the last plague: Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the female slave, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well. (Exodus 11:5) This would be the straw that would break Pharaoh’s will and set the Israelites free. But there was something else different about this plague. Whereas previous plagues devastated most of Egypt while leaving the land of Goshen, where the Israelites lived, untouched, this plague would hit everyone everywhere in Egypt. And the only way to avoid losing your firstborn son was to listen only to what Yahweh said and, in faith, do what he called you to do.
And what Yahweh called his people to do was something that he had never asked anyone to do before. They were to choose a lamb without any defects, slaughter it at twilight, and then take some of its blood and mark the top and the sides of the doorframes of their houses. Then they were to roast the lamb, not breaking any of its bones in the process, and eat it in their homes in haste. The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt. (Exodus 12:12-13)
This is an extraordinary thing that the Lord God is asking people to do. He is asking them to heed his warnings that the danger is real, and then he is asking them to trust that the blood of a lamb will save them from death. Why should they trust him? Because he has proven that he is worthy of that trust. The miraculous plagues showed that Yahweh was more powerful than the fake gods of Egypt, more powerful than the most powerful man on earth, more powerful than the most powerful nation on earth. Those plagues also showed that this most powerful God, Yahweh, was on the side of the powerless Israelites. They had no political clout or economic reserves or military power. All they had was Yahweh, and that was enough because he loved them, and he would rescue them.
How Would the Israelites Respond to God’s Love?
But there is a deeper question here. How will the Israelites respond to Yahweh’s love? You can do great and wonderful things for someone else, you can pledge your love to them, and you can dedicate your life to them. But that will not guarantee that they will love you back. The only way that you can find out if someone really loves you is by observing their actions. Do they listen to what you say and modify their life accordingly, doing more of those things that strengthen the bond between you and doing less of those things that diminish it? Sometimes this happens but all people are doing is going through the motions. The best indication that the other person truly loves you is when they are willing to pay the cost of love, when they sacrifice what has been important to them so that you can have what is important to you, when they willingly take the lower place so that you can have the higher place, when they set aside their needs and desires so that yours can be fulfilled.
Yahweh did not need the Israelites’ love, but their love revealed through action would indicate whether they had a relationship with Yahweh or not, and it was through that relationship that Yahweh would save them.
The Israelites did what God commanded them to do. Each household chose a lamb without blemish, slaughtered it, and marked the doorposts of their homes with its blood. That night, at midnight, as the Lord passed through the land of Egypt, he struck down the firstborn males of all the homes of the Egyptians. But he passed over all the homes marked with the blood of the Passover Lamb, and all within were kept safe. During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the Lord as you have requested. (Exodus 12:31)
The Israelites packed up what they could and began to leave Egypt. As they did that, they followed Moses’ instructions and asked the Egyptians for silver, gold and clothing. And so, they took much of Egypt’s wealth with them as they began their journey toward the Promised Land. Yahweh had transformed their lives: they had been poor slaves, but now they were prosperous and free, and on their way to an abundant land flowing with milk and honey. The Lord had brought their former captors to their knees.
The Signs God Gives Us & Our Response to Them
So what does this all mean for us? There is one verse in our passage to which I want to draw your attention. It’s verse 13, where God says, The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt. (Exodus 12:13) God does not need to have blood on the doorposts of homes to determine who has saving faith in him and who does not. He can see directly into every human heart and he already knows who truly trusts in him and who doesn’t. But we cannot see into other people’s hearts and we do not fully know what is going on in our own heart. We need something more.
So God asks us to do some very special things, things that we would not normally do, and then God works through those things to save us. I am referring to the sacraments, or sacred acts of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion. It costs us to stand up before others and admit that we need to have all our sins washed away, we need to receive new life from God, we need to be connected with Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Many of us were likely baptized as infants we don’t remember when that happened, but we remember our Baptism every Sunday when we stand up and confess our sins and receive God’s free and full forgiveness through Jesus.
It costs us to come before the altar, as we are going to do in a few moments, and identify as one of God’s broken and hurting people who need forgiveness, nourishment and healing through the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus. And Jesus will feed us and set us free. The water in Holy Baptism and the bread and the wine of Holy Communion are a sign for us. God gave those things to us so that we could see them and be assured of God’s love for us and our salvation in his Kingdom. Then when God sees Communion and Baptism applied to our lives, he passes over us when handing out condemnation, but he scoops us up in his arms and holds us close as he gives us abundant life that lasts forever.
The Lamb That Sets Us Free
For the Passover Lamb that freed the Israelites pointed ahead to another Lamb that would come later, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. I am referring to Jesus, God the Son who came into this world to become fully human. In meekness, like a lamb, he offered up his life to pay the full cost of forgiveness for all people in the world throughout all time. He was nailed to a cross to suffer and die, and he was buried. But then on the third day, he rose from the dead, proving his power over all things for us, including death. As his blood is applied to the doorposts of our heart, Jesus gives us life and sets us free forever.
Jesus is not only our Savior, he is also our North Star, the Guiding Light by which we orientate our entire life. Jesus is the One who helps us assess the vast array of information coming at us and determine which we should act on and how. And one of the ways that Jesus can help us to do that is through observing the season of Lent, which begins this Wednesday.
Lent is a stripped-down season of restraint, reflection and repentance, where Christians are encouraged to reflect on their relationship with God. One thing that many Christians do during Lent is set aside some of their pleasures in life so that they can focus more freely on God. This isn’t done because we have to, or to earn God’s favor, but because we recognize that the noisiness of this world can obscure the signal that we really need to hear: the whisper of the Holy Spirit as he speaks to our spirit.
So the challenge I want to leave with you is this: over the next three days leading up to Lent, prayerfully consider what you might do differently during Lent so that you are better able to hear the voice of God. Amen.
[i] “History’s Most Horrific Disasters That Could Have Been Easily Avoided: An analyst figured out Bernie Madoff’s Scheme a decade before anyone took action,” PastFactory (Internet; available at: https://www.pastfactory.com/history/historys-most-horrific-disasters-that-could-have-been-easily-avoided/; accessed January 31. 2024).
(This message was shared at Walnut Grove Lutheran Church in Langley BC on February 11, 2024. For more information about our church, please go to wglc.org.)
Farewell to Shadowlands 
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